


Overuse

by frozenCinders



Category: Bx: Execute (OFF Fangame)
Genre: CSRverse, M/M, a collection of moments in lepi's life
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-20
Updated: 2020-08-20
Packaged: 2021-03-06 15:08:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,082
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26000929
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/frozenCinders/pseuds/frozenCinders
Summary: It's funny how language works-- how a word can lose its meaning the more you say it.
Relationships: Lepi/Borbo | Lenore Thaddeus
Comments: 5
Kudos: 6





	Overuse

"I hate you," Lepi tells him.

"Hate you too~!" Lenny replies, but he has the fucking heart eyes on his visor.

"Stop playing around. You are a monster in every sense of the word, a despicable creature that doesn't deserve to exist. Truly, I hate you."

"Let me know when you find a way to end me!" he singsongs like he doesn't care at all.

"Shut up. I hate the sound of you."

"Hm... is that a favorite word of yours?"

"Leave and you won't have to hear it anymore."

"You hate my voice, hm? It pisses you off?" His voice starts changing and Lepi knows it's one of the settings on his stupid helmet. "How about this one? Or this one? Or this one?"

"Everything that is you, I despise," Lepi says.

"Ah, thank you for the clarification," Lenny says in a nearly perfect imitation of Lepi's own voice. Lepi retaliates with action rather than words this time, but Lenny ducks away and flees his file. At least he got him to leave.

And now it's quiet again.

* * *

"It's very pleasant out today. Are you enjoying the weather?" Lepi asks the butterfly perched on his finger. "Gather your friends, I have a bouquet for you."

The butterflies gently swarm to him, feeding off of the nectar in the flowers he holds. Not one of them says a word to him. It would be silly to expect otherwise.

* * *

Another "maybe" from Nevada and Lepi is left sitting alone in his house, well aware they won't be able to make it. The sun is setting, the horizon stealing the light away from his home. He sits there and watches the room darken. It's not like he has anything better to do.

* * *

Lenny is in his file again. He's just loitering by the portal he'd created, laying back with a device in his hands.

"You should try playing games," he says. When Lepi gets closer, he hears faint, cheery music coming from the device, along with intermittent sound effects.

"I can't imagine what sort of "games" would capture _your_ attention."

Lenny turns the device to face Lepi. It's a tiny thing with two screens. On the bottom screen is a load of commands, and on the top are two creatures facing off against each other.

"Hey, help me make a decision. Fire, water, electric, dark--"

"What are you babbling about?"

"--psychic, grass, or ice. Pick one!"

"None of them."

Lenny turns the screens to face himself again and sits up. The music changes once and then twice, and then Lenny is turning it again to show Lepi the front view of his little creature. It's named Eevee, and it's a brown fox.

"How about this instead? Pick a color."

"Blue," Lepi answers immediately.

"Of course. Light or dark?"

"Dark."

"Water it is, then. I could use a tank."

Lepi squints at him.

"... Of water?" he asks.

"Hm... will you sit with me and let me explain what I mean?"

Lepi considers opening a maw in the ground beneath Lenny and letting him fall through. He sits, though-- close enough to see the screens.

Lenny talks and talks and talks as he plays the game and Lepi both listens and watches, entranced. He can't even muster up the ability to feel offended that Lenny is acting like they're "friends", or at least not enemies. He learns a lot about video game terms and "Pokémon". Eevee is nice. It can turn into so many different things.

He leaves of his own accord that day, not because Lepi chased him out.

"I still hate you," Lepi says as a farewell, in case there were any doubt.

"Hate you too," Lenny replies in that disingenuous voice of his.

"Just once, would you take me seriously?" he asks. Lenny thinks about it.

"Maybe next time, Life."

And then he's gone.

* * *

Lepi knows where every living thing in his file is. He feels the need to pretend not to. He tells himself that the inhabitants' fear of him is misplaced, that they are simply ungrateful, and that he doesn't wish to see them anyway. Really.

* * *

Lenny has a ball this time. It's small and quite springy. He bounces it off the walls of the abandoned house Lepi finds him in, creating a deafening echo with each contact.

"I suppose it's in your nature to be annoying," Lepi says.

"Why, hello to you too, Life!"

Lenny continues throwing that stupid ball. Lepi gives him four more times before he steps in and catches it.

"I have a game we can play," Lenny proposes. "Throw that ball at the wall and try to hit me with it. It has to bounce off the wall before it touches me, or it doesn't count!"

"That doesn't sound like a game. That sounds painful."

"Don't you wanna hurt me? Don't you wanna chuck that ball right at my face? Don'tcha, Life?"

Now he does. He throws it hard and it flies across the room, the echoes tormenting him as it hits nothing but hard surfaces.

"My turn," Lenny says. He scoops the ball up from where it rolls and throws it at the same wall he'd been assaulting earlier.

It skips off Lepi's arm quicker than he can react.

"That's a point for me!"

Lenny catches the ball before it's done with its ricochets.

"What do the points mean?"

"First to five points wins! Or ten, if you'd like to keep going."

"Wins what?"

"Are you asking me what the point of the points is?"

Lepi almost says yes before he catches the joke. Lenny tosses the ball to him and he tries another throw. He hits himself hard in the collarbone.

"Hm... Shall I profit off of your misery and count that as a point for myself?"

"No," Lepi hisses. Lenny retrieves the ball for him and lets him try again.

This time, the ball bounces clean off Lenny's helmet. The sight of it is comical; Lepi can't help a little laugh. Lenny has his visor's display artificially blank for a moment before playing shitty animated crying eyes, all big and cutesy.

"I'm done," Lepi says, satisfied. "That's victory enough for me."

* * *

He finds himself reproducing the echoes in that very same house, just to pretend there is a presence there besides his own.

* * *

Lenny is searching for him this time. Lepi could make himself scarce just to inconvenience him, but he figures the fiend would turn his hiding against him somehow. He shows himself, but makes it clear that he's not happy about it.

"Stop coming here, idiot," he commands. Not that Lenny is one to follow basic instructions.

"Make me," he says. Lepi can see his ghoulish eyes smiling behind that visor.

"Why don't _I_ proposition _you_ this time? I--"

"Buy me dinner first."

Lepi was going to say something else, but his mind shuts off at the willful misinterpretation of his words. Instead of making the offer he'd been thinking about, he starts chasing Lenny. He just laughs, treating the situation with the same seriousness he always treats life, and Life.

"Someday, you'll realize how much I mean it when I tell you I hate you," Lepi says to him when they're both exhausted.

"Someday, you will have the opposite realization," Lenny dares to retort.

Lepi almost manages to get a hand around his throat before Lenny is running again.

* * *

"Opposite realization". What the hell does that even mean? Lenny is an infuriating fool.

He haunts Lepi's mind nearly at all times.

* * *

When Lepi discovers that there is a new game out just for Eevee, he finally decides to own a video game. It's clearly a game for children, and it is much too kind to Lepi. Lenny's stupid buckethead occurs to him for some reason, and he begins to perceive the game's tone as patronizing.

Not Eevee, though. It's still a cute little animal. It isn't anything more than a game construct, but he decides its affection is genuine.

* * *

"How much do you hate me, dear Life?" Lenny asks him as a greeting.

"With all of my being, Lenore," is Lepi's tired answer.

"You know, nobody else uses my full name. It's kind of intimate!"

"I wish so badly to be able to kill you."

"Huh? Kiss me? You wanna kiss and cuddle me?"

He has his most annoying voice on. Even worse, he starts making the most _terrible_ kissing noises, playing those god forsaken heart eyes on his visor as he does it.

"You should stop projecting your own feelings onto me," Lepi says, closing his eyes and brushing his chest with his knuckles. "I know I'm quite easy to adore, but please control yourself."

"Oh, get over yourself, Life."

When Lepi opens his eyes, the visor's display is turned off, and Lenny's eyes are more serious than he's ever seen them.

"Funny how you only act positively when I actively reject you," Lepi points out. "Only want what you can't have, hm?"

"It's not even you. You see yourself as your grade, and _what_ a terrible curse it is. So when you start telling me that I love "you", I can't help but correct you."

"... What else am I?"

The question is genuine. The purpose of Lepi's existence is... Life. He is Life. There's nothing more to say.

"What else are you?" Lenny repeats back at him. "Life is something I could only love for a tragically brief window that has _long_ passed. You are not my misery, I can tell you that much."

"If... "I" don't bring you misery, then what?"

Lenny looks at him. His visor turns on and Lepi rolls his eyes ahead of whatever annoying imagery he decides to show him. However, nothing shows up on it, the blank light simply serving to obscure his eyes.

"... Buy me dinner first," he says. "Then I'll tell."

Lepi will do no such thing. Lenny never keeps his promises anyway.

* * *

Lepi dreams of being small, swaddled in someone's arms. It is not a memory, as such a thing has never happened to him. He keeps his eyes closed when he wakes up. The illusion of arms remains around him, almost tangible, until he forgets about it and the sensation disappears.

* * *

"Theoretically, how could you kiss with no mouth?" Lenny asks him.

"Two things. First, I could fashion a mouth." Lepi shows him as much, sinking the eyes into his head to fill his face with six mouths full of sharp teeth before reverting to normal. "Second, you think far too much about this."

"And how can you presume to know how much I think about this subject?"

"Because it's not the first time you've asked about kissing me, and I doubt it will be the last. Much to my chagrin."

That last addition sounds fake even to him. Lenny is getting in his head. Infuriating.

"It's fun to annoy you," Lenny says. "Consider it misplaced revenge."

"... Where would it be properly placed?"

"The conceptual life... or perhaps even the first Harbinger of Life. Yes, maybe they could have done something to stop me."

"I mean nothing to you, I assume," Lepi states. "You have too much reason not to be impressed, I admit."

"Why don't you tell me what I mean to you first? Fair's fair."

Lepi should have a response ready for him. He should tell Lenny that he is an enemy to Lepi, or a monster. Really, he's a curse upon the world, as opposed to Lepi being quite the blessing.

But he says none of that. In fact, he says nothing at all.

"Who means nothing to whom?" Lenny quips mildly.

He doesn't stay long enough for Lepi to think of a response.

* * *

Nevada is a friend. Lepi can respect death as a concept, and as a grade. He has never held a grudge against it for any reason. It's just that Lenny in particular is an abhorrence.

That's why it's a shame that he can't help but associate death with Lenny. It doesn't explain why decay begins fascinating him, why he crouches down to stare at the mushrooms that sprout after it rains, all while Lenny poisons his mind with his presence.

* * *

He wakes up from a dream of Lenny sitting by his bedside and running his fingers through Lepi's hair.

"I hate you," Lepi says quietly into the darkness of his room.

With a small shock, he comes to discover that the word hasn't carried its original meaning in a long time.


End file.
